Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska turned to Twitter on Thursday 22 March to speak of her “mixed feelings” after the European Parliament’s internal market committee had rejected the services e-card (see EUROPE 11986). She would seem not to have given up hope on this project.
“Mixed feelings this week: Good that Parliament & Council agreed on proportionality test for professional services. ... We still need progress on ecard, to provide true Single Market for companies, especially SMEs”, she tweeted.
Following the committee’s rejection, the European Parliament published a very untypical press release leaving open the possibility of relaunching the issue. “MEPs thus keep open the option of either starting (the legislative procedure) anew at a later stage or waiting for the position of the Council of the EU (Member States) before deciding on any concrete follow-up, i.e. adopting a new report for the rejection of the current proposals or seeking a compromise to amend them”, states the press release.
“The procedure has been suspended, then, but not closed”, commented a Parliamentary source, though describing the press release as “dishonest”. According to our source, the two rapporteurs were unwilling to put the matter to the plenary session for fear of having it rejected.
Four committees have called for rejection of the proposal – something very rarely seen in the history of the European Parliament, according to our source. And indeed, if the two rapporteurs wanted to resume the process, they would have to restart the whole thing from the very beginning.
In the Council, the issue is making very slow progress. “Nothing is planned in the working parties”, a diplomatic source said.
In a recent joint document, France and Germany expressed their serious reservations on this project (see EUROPE 11967) for reasons similar to those advanced by MEPs (see EUROPE 11960).
Civil society believes the issue to be dead and buried. Although the card proposal was designed for the construction industry, rejection has been welcomed by a section of this sector. In a joint press release, the European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC), SMEs in the construction industry (EBC) and the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) repeated their opposition.
On the other hand, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce (EUROCHAMBRES) expressed its disappointment, stating in a press release, that the proposal sought to make it easier to provide services cross-border. In its view, the card would in no way have encroached on the prerogatives of the member states in social inspections nor would it have had any effect on the scope of the posted workers directive. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)